RAVENCLAW
by Grimm Sister
Summary: The next installment of the acronym drabbles explores what it means to be a Ravenclaw - those ruled by the mind.
1. R owena's might intentions

_R owena's mighty intentions_

Let Salazar collect his little princelings. Let Godric train his army. Let Helga take her stand for equality and justice and all her precious ideals.

Rowena knew the world would need as many reasonable, wise heads as she could provide. The world needed as many open-minded, soundly reasoning pupils as she could train. If she could drill out every prejudice, hone intelligence so it was without restriction, discipline them to turn their thoughts to alternative solutions to the problems of the world…

They would end up advisors to Salazar's ambitious, scheming politicians. Let them rule if they must have power. Infuse them with wisdom, whisper it in their ear.

They would end up strategists plotting the attacks of Godric's warriors. Let the principled and brave burst into the world as a force to be reckoned with. Guide it so it did more good than harm.

They would end up mediators and cynical realists putting out the fires caused by Helga's insistent idealists. Let the strong and loyal have their little world. Help them make it a reality by making them see reason.

It would not satisfy ambition as well, provide deeds worthy of song, or make her the revered and beloved leader of a determined band. Instead, they would be the voices of reason shining a light on all of these proceedings, thinking outside of the narrow paths each of the other Houses trod. They would find a way where the other Houses would not. They would find a way for the other Houses to succeed.

Where Ravenclaws went, things would get done. When Ravenclaws were listened to, things would be done right.


	2. A cademic approach to anger

_A cademic approach to anger_

"_A lovely person who made a mistake?_ She sold us all out, including you!"

That was the thing about the other houses. Everything was always so simple for them. In Gryffindor if you went back on your principles or your allegiances you were an irredeemable weakling. In Hufflepuff if you betrayed a loyalty, a friendship, you were unfathomably wicked. In Slytherin betrayal was a both expected and a dealbreaker.

In Ravenclaw, nothing was ever simple. And the goal was not to fight and die bravely or work hard and help each other or get ahead as quickly as possible but to _understand_. When Cho heard what Marietta had done, she had been shocked and had _needed_ to _understand why_ she had done it.

Marietta's betrayal was not such a terribly difficult puzzle, once examined. Her mother was working at the Ministry and had been hounded by Umbridge and her office for weeks. She had always liked Cedric too and never fully believed Harry. She liked order and establishment and hated having secrets. She had really only gotten in so deep because of Cho, wanting to protect her, and she knew that it was getting out of hand…that soon it would be too late to keep it from exploding in all of their faces…

And once she understood, Cho had to forgive. Agreement wasn't the point of debates in the Ravenclaw Common Room. The goal was a mutual understanding, even if you didn't end up on the same side. Even if Cho wouldn't have made the same choice in her shoes, she could understand, so she couldn't be angry.

Ravenclaws could understand, and they could learn to forgive even a betrayal.

That wasn't how the other houses worked. It was so easy for them, but, ironically, it was Ravenclaw's academic approach to relationships that allowed her to keep her best friend.


	3. V eelas approaching

_V eelas approaching_

Fleur Delacour was really unfair. Just - really unfair. She didn't even need to - to be so - she probably didn't need to be magical to do that to boys.

Roger had seen men and boys all turn into mush over the veelas at the World Cup. But he had known how to handle them - mostly, you never seemed to be able to get anything _quite _right in front of a veela - by remembering what they are. Knowledge will be your salvation, any Ravenclaw boy knew. They were harpies underneath the intoxicating beauty, and knowing that could help you keep your wits - mostly.

But what were you supposed to do in the face of someone like Fleur Delacour? Someone as beautiful and bewitching as a veela who was, in fact, smarter than you? Knew more, more recognized, held the rank representing her school that you had lost out to a _Hufflepuff_? There was nothing that you could know about her that would help you keep your wits, that would give your brain that upperhand.

You just found yourself stabbing your chin with your food as all of your brains dribbled out your ears - the most idiotic Ravenclaw you ever saw. Because there was no weapon in a Ravenclaw boy's arsenal to deal with Fleur Delacour - a veela the truth could not diminish.


	4. E very Ravenclaw at once

_E very Ravenclaw at once_

These days everyone thought it was a myth – a scary story made up to scare first years. But it wasn't. It really happened.

One day, the eagle managed to concoct a riddle so fiendishly difficult that it locked every single Ravenclaw out of the Tower at once.

Some say that it was an accident. Much blame for the incident was placed at the feet of a young Muggleborn who was known to have been discussing a classic riddle from a Muggle children's book and the fact that all of the proposed answers to the riddle were made up decades later. The most popular of these answers, "Because Poe wrote on both" went over with the eagle about as well as you might expect in a world that has never heard of Edgar Allan Poe.

But those who witnessed it said it was a night they would never forget. A few renegades raided the kitchen to bring everyone snacks for the Best/Worst All Nighter ever. At one point, a young musician began to play music for everyone to wile away the time. As the hours wore on, the clusters, separated roughly by clique and year, broke down and began to intermingle. The most outlandish bits of knowledge were shared and thrown at the eagle knocker. The strangest theories were bandied about. The most elaborate contingencies plans invented. Some of the most fun they had ever had as a house was had. And many tears, for a plethora of reasons, were shed as the hours wore on and barriers broke down.

The entire house was closer after that very long night. Madam Pince still remembers the next morning with a vague shudder of terror as the entire house descended on the library in search of answers. Eventually, they read the Muggle author's official answer to the eagle, which was accepted, to the entire house's vast disappointment and annoyance with the stupidity of the answer.

They say that is why there is a standing contests to determine a better answer in the Ravenclaw common room to this very day. They say this is why Flitwick has a standing offer of fifty house points to anyone who brings him one better than he has heard before. What they also say is that during Voldemort's first rise, it was not Gryffindor house or even Hufflepuff house that it was hardest for him to infiltrate. They even say, sometimes, that is was that night that made that house so strong, at just the right time.

Though even the people who believe that do not forgive the eagle for posing an impossible problem.


	5. N ot covered in the textbooks

_N ot covered in the textbooks_

The year long sabbatical had been suggested when Dumbledore realized that the Muggle Studies teacher had never actually spent an extended period of time in the Muggle world. Quirinus didn't see the need for, what, getting a flat and living off of electricity for a year? He had read all of the relevant texts on the subject, including the insightful _Life on Outlets and Plugs: A Year of Magic-less Thinking_ by Martina Diggle. He understood the theory behind electricity better than most Muggles.

But he was grateful for the sabbatical, because he had other interests and other theories. He found clues in Muggle periodicals (which he read faithfully, of course, he was not lazy, Dumbledore) that he was certain no one had ever found before – or certainly never put together with the research into the Dark Arts he had done since his boyhood. The two interests so rarely intersected, but Ravenclaws understood the importance of all knowledge – of unexpected crossovers in disciplines.

And oh, how ironic, for the Dark Lord to be found and finally bested by a student of Muggle Studies!

Quirinus took great pleasure in the thought that the timid Professor Quirrell could do what the entirety of the Magical Law Enforcement had failed to do for a decade – simply because none of them studies Muggles and the Dark Arts with a Ravenclaw's full obsessive power brought to bear on both at once. They concentrated on their narrow little disciplines and could not open their minds. That was not Quirinus's problem.

In later years, when Dumbledore had learned the full story of what Professor Quirrell did with his year long sabbatical, he would wonder if, just maybe, Quirinus had tried to navigate a Muggle airport on his way to Romania, he would have realized in time all the things that the textbooks could not prepare him for.


	6. C lever little handbag

_C lever little handbag_

It's hilarious, really, that anyone could think, even for a moment, that a twelve-year-old Hermione Granger would think of using a pocket mirror to look around the corners. She had no practice calculating the precise angles needed to spot a boy in the reflection or keep a discreet eye on that troublesome little pimple. Cleverness only gets you so far, a Ravenclaw knows better than anyone. At some point, you have to know about a thing to use it well.

Oh, the look she gave the little clutch when I took it out, saying with the cheerful confidence of my house that I had just the thing to evade the basilisk in the castle. The Gryffindor look of dismissal and contempt and some horror. The Muggleborn shock I had worn on my own face so often in early years looked just the same on her when my arm disappeared up to the elbow - now she showed a spark of interest in the magic involved - and then the light of understanding in her eyes when I angled it, with great skill, around the corner.

The light of understanding, of joy in a clever new toy, was her undoing. She sprang forward to look, even though I had already frozen. So she saw the yellow eyes too - and perhaps the cleverness saved her, perhaps the monster would have killed.

It was a Ravenclaw mistake that we both made - to think that figuring out a clever tactic, born of new knowledge and a ready mind, would be enough to save us. To find joy in the tool even more than the goal achieved.


	7. L oony, loopy Lovegood

_L oony, loopy, lovegood_

The Sorting Hat had warned her. It would have been easier in any other House.

In Hufflepuff, she would have been accepted and protected, as long as she was _their_ weirdo, and it wouldn't matter if the rest of the school thought her barking – she wouldn't stand out as the mad, duffer Hufflepuff.

In Gryffindor, it wouldn't have mattered if she was odd as long as she lived up to her surname and loved good. If she were loyal, if she were brave, if she were unafraid of their ridicule, they would respect her. As they had the Weasley twins.

In Slytherin, it would have been nearly as hard. Lovegoods were purebloods but not highly respected. She may have been an outcast, but the folk of Slytherin were cunning and would appreciate this strange but oddly useful ally.

But her defining feature was her razor-sharp, perceptive mind and her thirst for more and more knowledge, her burning desire to learn more and share it with others. So she went merrily to the House more hierarchical than any other, obsessed with excellence and facts and figures and things that can be proved. Wild theories, even bounded by their same logical rules, were scorned, mocked, and ignored.

Odd, that the house known for learning were the ones so unwilling to open their minds to new ideas. Those ready minds were so hesitant to accept a strange thought. Much less a strange thinker.


End file.
